


Grav Boot

by BrowncoatWhit



Series: The Adventures of the Jin Dui [25]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24383074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrowncoatWhit/pseuds/BrowncoatWhit
Summary: Carver spies a possibile business opportunity on the moon of Bhima.
Series: The Adventures of the Jin Dui [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/656808
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	Grav Boot

**Author's Note:**

> For more about the Jin Dui and her crew, visit http://jin-dui.swartzer.com/index.php

**_Date: 2514.Sept.13  
Prosperity, moon of Bhima, Dragon’s Egg cluster_ **

Snowflakes drifted down out of Bhima's winter-grey sky, dusting the scrubland outside of the _Jin Dui's_ cargo bay door a mud-speckled white. The _Jin Dui_ had landed outside of a raggedy settlement named Prosperity -- an obvious misnomer ever there ever was one. But there was a sliver of hope the place might someday live up to its name. The village was at a crossroads and had a maglev rail depot between the small moon's capitol city and the planet's orefields, so it was a large enough place for the _Jin Dui_ to put out the ship’s miscellaneous services shingle, while not so large that the local magistrate dared charge the ship rent for the patch of dirt she had landed on. 

Hoss, Tor and Sully were currently up climbing around on the forward hull, patching the holes Bhima's makeshift defensive measures had put in the _Jin Dui_ during their pass by the moon yesterday morning. Someday, no doubt, the crew would be earning bar tabs by telling the tale of how their ship had almost been taken out by a frozen slab of bacon -- but that misadventure was still too raw on Captain Bet Cooper's nerves for her to see the humor in it quite yet. The event frightened her far more after the fact than it had during. And more seriously -- the damage done to the ship’s hull proved too expensive to fix while at dock at the Blue Sun shipyard orbiting Dragon's Egg, the gas giant which Bhima and its sister moons circled. Idle time for a working cargo ship equaled loss of profit, and the _Jin Dui's_ profits on this run of the Rim were already threadbare. So they’d patched their battered ship up enough to make descent into atmo safe, then headed back toward Bhima and its promise of free parking. 

The _Jin Dui_ had landed around dawn dirtside-time, and immediately put out another notice by wave of their ship services. By morning tea, a couple of dozen townsfolk had wandered over to satisfy their curiosity. The crew learned a little better at each stop along their tour of the Blue Cluster what the needs of isolated settlements were, and how the ship might offer to meet those needs. 

Fatima had the door open to the cargo pod they'd modified to serve as a storefront for general goods, offering up all of the second-hand clothing, tools, kitchenware, furniture, and odds and ends they'd gather for resale since departing from Beylix. The shy pilot had proven to be a hardened haggler, skills earned back at home at the bodega her parents owned on Persephone. Abby had pulled some all-nighters studying up on divorce and inheritance laws in the Blue Cluster, and thus armed, had set up a table and a patched silk privacy screen in a starboard corner of the cargo bay, and had been busy putting her Core law degree to use all morning. Cianán had art hanging from the back side of Fatima's cargo pod, and was sketching caricatures for pennies -- or in one case, for parsnips. 

Cooper herself had posted notice of her medical services -- both human and veterinary -- and been kept busy with a steady stream of patients. With the lower deck crew lounge serving as a waiting room, Cooper put the ship's infirmary bay to use. She had already performed a number of vaccinations, lasered off an old woman's cataracts, neutered two tomcats, drained an inflamed abscess on a farmer's hip, and excised a lipoma from a lapdog owned by Prosperity's mayor. Payment had been made in old Independent script, some hard Alliance cash cred, two raw sheepskins, four jars of pickled asparagus, a bushel of seed potatoes, and one fat and overly-friendly laying hen. Whatever the ship's crew couldn't bank, put on the dinner table, or otherwise put to use would go into Fatima's traveling emporium for sale at the _Jin Dui's_ next layover.

Cooper was dropping surgical linens into the sterilizer after the departure of her last patient when Chang popped through the infirmary door. With Hoss, Tor and Sully patching the holes in the ship's hull, and young Tilly running their errands, Chang was working the cargo bay floor, coordinating between each of the ship's shingles and assisting Carver in keeping a wary eye on the natives. "Carver's asking for you," her numbers man said. "Got a possible patient of the four-legged kind," Chang said, hooking a thumb back over his shoulder toward the cargo bay behind him.

Cooper nodded acknowledgement and finished resupplying her prep tray before leaving the ship’s Infirmary. She limped through the hatch into the ship's cargo bay and followed after Chang toward the ship's landing doors. As Cooper crossed the deck, the chatter of customers at Fatima's makeshift storefront and the murmur of voices coming from behind Abby's privacy curtain were money-making music to Cooper's ears. The _Jin Dui_ might not make much here on Bhima, but maybe they'd at least begin to cover expenses -- and keep eating. 

Every world had its quirks from the terraforming process, and Bhima's unique trait seemed to be an atmosphere that carried the tang of brine shrimp even hundreds of miles inland. The shrimpy taste tickled the back of her nose and left her feeling like she was going to sneeze at any moment. Cooper wrinkled her nose against the smell, and her breath puffed like steam in the cold winter air that poured into the ship from the wide open loading doors. She limped down the ship's ramp to join Carver where the ship's security officer stood, alongside a local kid and a tiny pony no larger than Odin, who stood at Carver’s heels staring warily at the other beast. The winter cold didn't seem to affect Carver at all, but the young boy standing next to him was shivering in a threadbare coat, his hands wrapped around the pony's halter at the cheekstrap, where the pony's shaggy coat could warm his fingers.

"What've we got here?" Cooper asked as she joined them, leaning on her cane. Her crippled leg ached in the cold, and she couldn't help but look at the boy's ragged clothing with some sympathy.

"It's winter cull time," the boy said, swiping the back of his other hand across a runny nose. "Mum says we can't winter over another stallion, so we got to sell Bootsy or else." The boy's eyes were red and runny as well -- but likely from grief, not illness. "I bottle raised him," the boy added, patting the pony's dark neck. "I'd rather see him sold on than made into sausage."

Cooper gave the boy a droll look, wondering how much of the weepy-face was for real versus how much was a sales maneuver. "We're not buying livestock," she said firmly, steeling herself against sympathy.

Carver moved then, taking the pony by the head and checking its teeth. "He’s in good condition," the man said, as he knelt to inspect the pony's hooves.

"Bootsy's a three-year-old," the boy offered at once, jumping at the opportunity. "His ma had twins, so I helped raise him. He's been in pocket since he was just a baby, and Mum says he's spoiled rotten, but I've taught him tricks and he's started at cart this past summer. Watch -- Boots, bow!" The little horse promptly ducked his head and shoulders and stuck out of a foreleg as if bowing. "See? He's real smart, and he comes when you whistle, and he's going to be a real good puller, just like his ma and pa. They're pit ponies, and they can pull three times their weight day in and day out, twelve hours a day. And they're easy keepers. Puts weight on real good, keeps it on, so you's got some steak out of 'm should they ever go lame."

"Like I said, we're not buying livestock," Cooper said, watching Carver with some exasperation as he continued to inspect the little horse. She didn’t like the man’s sudden interest in the little beast, and she frowned as she watched him feeling through the horse’s heavy feathering of hair for the soundness of each canon bone. 

The boy deflated, no doubt expecting to have to take his Bootsy back to face a winter season slaughter. But Carver flickered a glance at his captain. Cooper caught it, and having grown better at reading the silent former soldier's eye-language over the past few months, she followed his lead and gave the tiny creature another look. It was a shaggy enough little thing, all right -- no more than 6 and a half hands at the withers, if even that. The pony’s coat was dark bay, with white sabino markings up his feathery legs and underbelly, and up the underside of his head, neck and chest. The creature's eyes were a bright blue, and its ears curved inward charmingly at the tips. Cooper realized what it was that had attracted Carver's interest in the little guy -- for all of the beast's tiny pony size, it wasn't a runty, malformed miniature. Instead, its conformation was perfectly proportional to a full-sized draft horse. 

"He's cute," Cooper offered, leaning on her cane and giving the miniature horse long, long critical look. "You breed ponies to work in the mines, huh?"

The boy nodded. "Only the ones who can pull the heaviest carts and who keep the easiest. The rest get et."

Carver had finished his close inspection of the young stallion's legs and feet and was watching Cooper. There was no expression on his burn-scarred face, but Cooper swore she could feel his interest in the horse radiating from him. "You think there's a market offworld for shrimp-sized little horses?" she said to the former marine.

Carver's shoulders raised in a marginal shrug. "Not at Meridian or at Deadwood," he said. "But when we head back in to the Core? Yeah.”

Cooper frowned at her security officer, torn between curiosity and annoyance. "We're not a damn flying barn," she grumbled; even as she said the words, she was well aware of the stable pod beneath the ship's nose, which they'd towed out of the _Jin Dui's_ cargo bay that morning. The crew had strung up temporary fencing around it and were giving the _Jin Dui's_ goats and chickens a day out to nibble through the snow at the winter-fried grass. Carver saw the flicker of her scowl toward the milk goats, and a hint of a smile lurked in his eyes. She sighed and nodded, giving her crewman permission to do what he clearly wanted to do.

"How's he around goats?" Carver asked, and sensing hope of a sale, the boy's face beamed.

Cooper hid a smile of her own behind a near-sneeze. She knew Carver was a former ranch brat from before the War. Carver had largely taken over the daily care of the ship’s livestock already, and back on Beylix, he had rescued a bunch of junkyard dogs and used the _Jin Dui’s_ time in transit to put enough manners on them that the ship earned a profit selling them off to a livestock broker on Orzmud. If Carver thought he could turn a coin back in the Core with this teacup-sized draft horse, she was willing to give his instincts a chance. "You want to do this, then the little hayburner is yours. You make the arrangements and he's your responsibility," she told her security officer. "And get a wave pin for the kid, too," she added, not successful this time at hiding the smile. "If there's really a market back in civilization for these little paddock pets, maybe we'll want to pick up a few more on our next pass through the Rim."

"Yes ma'am," Carver replied, always enlisted-correct. Cooper gave him and the boy and the handsome little sabino bay a final look, then turned and made her way back up the landing ramp into the cargo bay of her ship.

"A patient?" Chang asked as she limped past him at the cargo bay door control panels, where he was standing for a moment in the warm outflow from a ship's vent.

"A monopoly, I think," Cooper replied dryly. "Either that, or the man wants himself a pony." Cooper smiled. Chang's eye-pop was as predictable as it was amusing. "We'll have to do something about that name, tho'," the captain added. "I hate the name _'Bootsy.'_ "

**_\--end--_ **


End file.
